Potatoes

Growing Potatoes

The number of weeks needed for potatoes to be mature varies. Please read the information when you buy the eyes or seeds. The simplest way to propagate potatoes is to take the slightly sprouted ones in your hamper and cut them into sections each with an eye with a sprout. You can get up to 8-10 per potato.

Plant in a very well-worked drained soil. Place them 12-18" apart as their roots spread quite a distance and the colony of new potatoes underground will be a large circle so to speak. Planting in good soil is necessary as they must grow easily through it and form the potatoes. Digging them in the fall is easier if the soil is loose and fine.

Compost or leaf mold spaded in will give them added nutrients.

Feed well throughout the season and water deeply often to soak the root area. Try to avoid foliage wilting in the hot summer sun. Watch for nasty potato bugs aphids and Japanese beetles. Spray immediately.

When fall arrives and the tops go dry use a pronged spade to carefully dig down all around the plant being careful not to slice into the potatoes. Allow them to air dry wash off all dirt and store in a cool dark dry location.

Member Glenita helps out with hands-on advice for growing potatoes in straw:

It is the only way my husband will let me plant potatoes. You plant your potatoes and let them start to grow. When they are up through the ground completely cover them with straw.  You want the straw about a foot deep.  It will settle during the summer so the thicker the better.  Now all you do is water the potatoes and keep the bugs off.

At harvest time all you do is rake back the straw and pick up the potatoes off the ground.  We have grown huge potatoes because they don't have to move the dirt around it just has the soft hay to move.  We love to grow the potatoes this way.

Q. I want to plant red potatoes. I want to plant them in straw but will need   your instructions; when to plant (here in Vermont) how deep to plant how much straw will be needed per plant the care and when to harvest the crop. I am so pleased to know you are available to answer questions!

A. I am not experienced with growing potatoes in straw. Is this the only medium that touches the roots and tubers? Is it done so that the potatoes may be dug up more easily? I am truly clueless.

I have grown them in garden beds in Ohio Michigan and California. I plant the eyes about 5-6 " deep and 2-3' apart. I make sure that the soil is loosened very well in the spring and plant them when the soil is no longer cold and the frost date has passed. If you do not know your date call your local agricultural station and an employee there would know as it varies from state to state city to city!

They require good deep watering and not soggy therefore well-drained. Straw would supply that but since it does not hold food .